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That night, Elara told Sorin all about her reign. They watched some movies in the background to muffle their discussion. Sorin learned that Elara's immortality was achieved because of her unique reign, [Time].

"I was awakened when I was around 16. At first, my unique reign was not [Time (SSS+)], but [Return (A)]. I could return to the past for a couple of minutes. Over time, it evolved into its stronger versions," Elara explained.

"And when I achieved it, I froze my body in time to be a forever 21-year-old. I can also heal myself by reversing my injury or sickness while also manipulating myself through the fabric of time."

"That's such a cheat-like ability..." Sorin muttered. "But, technically, with that god-like ability, you should be stronger than everyone else, right?"

"Technically?" Elara giggled. "I guess."

[I don't want to get stronger anymore than this...]

Sorin's ears perked up when he heard her thoughts. Immediately, that was weird. Elara should be able to grow as strong as her parents, but she chose not to? Especially when she knew she could learn her parents' names if she got stronger?

"You said that your unique reigns evolved... Does it means my reign could evolve too?" Sorin asked.

"It's not impossible, but your reign is already an SSS rank, right? I needed around a hundred years to evolve my reign from SSS to SSS+, you know? And it was kinda an accident," Elara answered.

And so Sorin wondered more why Elara stopped wanting to get stronger when she should already be that strong.

"But only judging from your reign's name, [Reverse (SSS)] might not be your reign's original name. We can assume it will evolve to its real name once it becomes its stronger version," Elara said.

"Real name, huh? So your [Time (SSS+)] is the real name of your [Return (A)]?" Sorin asked. "I wonder what's the real name of [Reverse] then."

They talked again until midnight. Elara told him a bunch of interesting stories from hundreds of years ago. Sometimes, Sorin needed to narrow his eyes to understand her varying vocabulary from another time period.

"...thus did I counsel Brother to retreat homeward ere the hour grew too late, for naught remained within our power to avert the ship's impending descent on the morrow..."

The longer it got, it felt like hearing the enactment of Goethe's novels, even though Elara was telling him her own experiences. Sorin's mind drifted off into the dream world by Elara's melodious voice and old-time words.

He thought as he closed his eyes, 'Ah. She was born around the time Goethe and Jane Austen were famous...'

'Maybe the more excited she tells her stories, the more her words become... so... beautiful...'

Being half-conscious, Sorin heard Elara's question. Her voice was so soft and soothing, "Are you going to join us... or not, Sorin?"

Sorin was on the brink of sleep. But still, he accidentally answered truthfully, "Yeah. I will... join..."

***

As the first rays of morning light filtered through the curtains, the small city apartment stirred to life. Birds outside the window greeted the day with their cheerful melodies, harmonizing with the distant hum of traffic below.

Sorin opened his eyes.

"Uugh... why am I sleeping on the couch...?" his first confusion of the day was interrupted by the sudden realization that—"I'm late!"

Sorin ran to brush his teeth and shave. He cut his chin because he was so rushed. But he didn't have time to even put some ointment on it. He changed his clothes and grabbed his bag before running toward his front door.

His pretty neighbor, Amy, opened her door as she took her trash out. She smiled at him, "Good morning, Sorin!"

"Hey. Good morning," Sorin ran past her toward the elevator but then realized he would be late if he used it. He ran toward the stairs instead.

Amy tilted her head, "He's late? Huh, his girlfriend didn't wake him up...?"

Suddenly, Amy's eyes became empty before she muttered again, "Girlfriend?" she tried to recall something she had forgotten while knowing absolutely nothing about it. "Why did I think that Sorin had a girlfriend...?"

***

VROOM...

TAP!

TAP-TAP-TAP-TAP!

"Please! Please wait!"

Sorin tried his best to run after the bus, realizing it was too late. He groaned and finally decided to wave for a taxi instead, grimacing at how expensive it will be.

He got into one but knew that whatever he did, he would still be late anyways. And just like he thought, he was around 20 minutes late when he arrived at his office.

After a while, he looked around to see that, weirdly, no one even noticed him being late. No. It seemed that they didn't care. He asked his coworkers and learned something quite shocking.

"You didn't see the news? Our company's president was shot dead last night."

"What?!" Sorin was immediately warned by everyone's stare to shut up. Sorin himself almost bit his own tongue in the process. He discreetly asked further, "What happened?"

"Search it on the internet yourself..."

Sorin blinked once to recover himself and then tried to find his phone. But after probing for a minute inside his bag, he couldn't find it. His frown became even thicker.

"Where did I leave my phone...?" he sighed, then decided to open his work computer to search for the news. His eyes widened.

It was true.

The company's president was shot dead in his penthouse last night. No suspect was published by the police yet, but the viral fact that was spread on the internet was how the penthouse was littered with bloody demonic pentagrams.

Especially the bathroom.

"They said he was a demonic cult's sacrifice target," whispered his coworker.

Sorin narrowed his eyes. He felt huge goosebumps coming assaulting him out of nowhere. But then, his mind arrived at the same conclusion why everyone else look so weird. "What will happen to us...?"

At first, he assured his mind. There was no way a huge company like this would collapse because its president died, right?

But he was wrong.

He went to work for another week before suddenly, a notice came to his email. One-sided employment termination due to the company's bankruptcy.

He was a new employee even though he was hired permanently.

Even though he checked his contract for over an hour every day after the president's death, there were not a lot of things that could save him from getting fired when the worst thing happened. Not like he had money to hire a lawyer, either.

At least, from the email, he was promised some kind of financial compensation.

Like he thought, why would the world suddenly decide to treat him so well?

Just when he got a new job... something like this happened. Sorin could only sit reclined on his desk chair. He grabbed a letter from the mail he got just that morning. It was a notice to pay his student loan.

Sorin chuckled.

Of course, it wouldn't be that easy to be successful just because he graduated from university and escaped his mess of upbringing. Well, at least he had a degree. He can apply for some jobs around.

Restarting, getting back to his feet.

And that's when he noticed another email on his laptop. His university friend reached out to him.

"Huh...? Sociology bachelor... law enforcement application?"